Spreading floods in Thai North

SUKHOTHAI, THAILAND, September 4 (TNA) - Floods in the Thai North have been spreading to Sukhothai Province, prompting local officials to take urgent action to protect provincial economic zones. Water in the Yom River overflew sandbag dikes and a floodwall on Thursday morning, flooding local government offices in the Muang Sukhothai Thani Municipality, including the Provincial Hall of the lower northern Thai province, with floodwater levels in the provincial heart measured at 20-30 metres and apparently rising further. A new floodwall, as high as nearly two metres, has been, thus, built but water in the Yom River has kept rising and was reported on Thursday afternoon only about 10 centimetres before its, again, overflows. The worsening flooding in Sukhothai has caused local roads in the Pak Kwae locality of Muang District to become unpassable for small vehicles, forcing motorists and commuters to have used a bybass connecting with nearby Pitsanulok and Tak Provinces instead. Officials of the Muang Sukhothai Thani Municipality, in the meantime, have prepared large water pumps in order to immediately drain out a new round of inundation in the provincial centre caused by, probably, new overflows from the Yom River. The rising water in the Yom River has also eroded river banks as long as about 15 metres and quickly flooded more than 200 local households, farmlands and an over-300-metre section of a main road, forcing locals to have moved their belongings and agricultural tools to safe grounds. In adjacent Pichit Province, a flash flood from the Petchaboon Mountain Range has caused the Dai Chum Saeng Canal to have overflown and inundated nearly 100 households in the area, forcing local villagers to have moved their belongings to high grounds and traveled by boats instead. In Phayao Province in the Upper Thai North, the provincial disaster prevention and mitigation office reported, meanwhile, that more than 15,000 locals of a total of 4,082 households and their farmlands have been affected by flooding from August 29- September 3, with damage initially assessed at about 100 million baht. (TNA)